Those of us that have lived in countries considered world powers have probably been exposed to commercials late at night at one point or another which display the harsh living conditions people in developing countries have to face on a day-to-day basis. Images of starving men, women and children covered in tattered clothes or no clothes at all suddenly show up on our television screens, their faces revealing to us just how miserable their lives really are. Many of these individuals walking along trash-filled dirt roads appear to be sick and it is apparent that they have no access to medical treatment but at the end of all of these commercials is a call to action urging us, the viewers, to donate to a charity that will help save these poor unfortunate souls so that they can finally have decent places to call home with access to clean water, food, education and medical care.
However over the past three decades, there has been a growing awareness of how the misfortune of others is being exploited through our various forms of media in order to fulfill certain agendas such as raising funds for a charity or cause outrage for political reasons and that term is now known as poverty porn. From my perspective, what poverty porn implies is that we shouldn’t use these tactics to find solutions to these issues but in the modern world that we find ourselves in, where social media platforms such as Youtube, Instagram and Pinterest are highly visual, my question is: how can we NOT use them when it’s clear that we ARE a highly visual society and always have been?
Personally, I believe that anything in life can either be seen as negative or positive and what determines how we choose to view any subject really comes down to our own personal perspective so although I don’t agree with people’s misfortune being exploited, I do feel that there does need to be some sort of visual exposure of their living conditions so as to raise awareness because otherwise, how else would we find out and actually care? There’s a reason that we have the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” We want to be able to see the faces of real people and know that we have it within our power to help change someone’s life for the better and I believe that companies such as Alternative Peru are helping tourists visiting Peru do just that.
A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to take an “Authentic Lima Half Day Tour” given by Alternative Peru and got to experience what life was like for some of the poorest communities in Lima firsthand. I’ve been living in Lima since 2009 and had not once gone to a community considered to have extreme poverty in all this time and although I knew what to expect from going to places such as this, experiencing it for myself even for just a half day has altered the course of my life completely.
Ecotourism,
a modern way of combatting poverty and saving the planet?
38
Photography by : Gerard J Kelly